Send Time Optimization overview
Send Time Optimization (STO) calculates the best send time for each customer to receive a campaign to drive higher engagement.
It optimizes for total campaign clicks throughout the entire day by prioritizing getting emails to customers at the right time and enabling customers to receive more than one email campaign per day if they qualify.
Test and control groups
Bluecore supports both a test group (customers who receive the STO campaigns) and a control group (customers who all receive the campaigns at a set time) to prove the efficacy of the STO testing.
Each Namespace has a certain percentage of the audience that is randomly selected into the control group. The percentage starts at 50% of the audience in each group, and updates automatically as you send out more STO campaigns.
For example, if your percentage is 50%, in an audience of 1,000 customers, 500 will be in the test group and 500 will be in the control group. If the percentage decreases to 30% for the same audience, 700 customers will be in the test group and 300 customers will be in the control group.
Considerations
Ensure minimal overlap between same-day STO and non-STO campaigns
Non-STO campaigns take priority over STO campaigns, so if both kinds of campaigns are scheduled to be sent on the same day, make sure the audiences don’t have a significant audience overlap. If they do have an audience overlap, the STO campaign may be suppressed for customers who qualified for both campaigns.
If both campaigns must be sent on the same day, consider making them both STO sends so they can both be sent at optimal times for the customers, increasing the likelihood of customers receiving both campaigns.
Use for high-volume sends
Targeting high-volume audiences with STO sends ensures you’re not arbitrarily choosing a send time, and can reach more of your audience when they are active.
Advertise promotional sends without a time constraint
Due to STO campaigns sending out emails over a 24-hour timeframe, flash sales, low inventory alerts, and other time constraint promotions may alert the customer long after the event has ended.
Prioritize existing customers over new ones
STO relies on knowing when customers have previously opened emails. Existing customers will already have this data, and new customers will most likely end up in the control group.
Avoid behavior-based triggers
Campaigns based on behavioral triggers should be sent out as soon as possible after the behavior. With the calculation and waiting to send until the optimal time, STO campaigns won’t send as quickly as a triggered campaign that’s set to run hourly.
View or update the STO time zone
Navigate to Campaigns > Settings > Send Time Optimization. The control group percentage and time zone display.
To update the time zone, select the new time zone from the drop-down and click Save.
Add STO to a campaign
Navigate to Campaigns and select either Automated Campaigns or One-Time Campaigns. The campaign list displays.
Create a campaign or click on an existing campaign to edit it.
On the Custom Automated Settings tab on when you want to send your campaign, click either Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
Note: Because STO sends can take up to 24 hours, it can’t be enabled for hourly sends.
Note: The campaign must be launched before midnight in the time zone the STO marketing settings use the first day of the initial send.
4. Enable the blue brain icon with the label, Bluecore will decide best send time for each customer.
5. In the Control Group Send Time, choose a time that the control group will receive the campaign.
6. Continue creating or editing the campaign.